EMP: Return of the Wild West Box Set | Books 1-3

by Hamilton, Grace

  They practically lived off tea these days. In warm weather, Grandma preferred to make it by setting the pitcher on a warm windowsill, but in the bitter cold, a kettle of hot water would have to do. That meant getting a fire going in the old stove, which was no simple task on a cold morning. As Emma made cups of tea, she wished, not for the first time, that they had sugar and lemon to add to it. She carried the cups on a tray to the table.

  “Why don’t you check on your father?” Marion asked. “See if the sausages are ready.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  Emma set the tray down and headed back across the living room. She found her father rocking quietly in one of the chairs as the sausages crackled on the small charcoal grill.

  “Mom wants to know if they’re ready?” she asked.

  “Not quite,” he replied, then had a fit of coughing. “Few more minutes.”

  Emma started to head back into the house when she spotted her brother. He was coming out of the barn with Grandpa’s old toolbox in his hand. In truth, though she hadn’t yet dared to say anything about it, she resented how little time or attention he paid to her these days. Even though she’d been shot, spent weeks recovering from the wound in her leg, and barely made it home—heck, she still had a slight limp—Darryl rarely spent any time with her. She couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a real conversation or worked on anything together.

  He was always busy, either with Justine or working on his own. There was so much she could learn from him. She’d had some ideas about how to rebuild and reinforce the fence, but no one had asked for her input. The few times she’d asked to help Darryl with some project on the ranch, he’d politely declined or put her off until later (a later that never came). Even his birthday had been cut short by the stupid fence, and the birthday boy himself had walked out of the party.

  He’s got a girlfriend now, she thought. I guess he doesn’t need a sister.

  She’d started to feel pretty invisible. Emma had a whole notebook full of ideas for the garden, for a smokehouse, for an irrigation system, and many other things. Before the EMP, she’d planned to become park ranger or do some other work in nature, so she’d studied a lot about wilderness survival. Indeed, it had been her idea to collect acorns in the forest in order to grind them into flour. Even Grandma hadn’t thought of that.

  Emma turned to her father, who was transferring the sausages from the grill to a plate with a small set of tongs.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

  “I’ll take these inside,” he said. “Why don’t you go get your brother and tell him to come and eat breakfast?”

  “Okay.”

  He closed the grill and shut the vent to smother the fire. Then he picked up the plate of sausages and headed for the front door. Emma almost let him go, but she suddenly blurted, “Hey, Dad?”

  He paused at the door and looked back at her. There was something weird going on with him. The look on his face seemed to shift at random from angry scowls to strangely excited little grins. What was on his mind? She couldn’t imagine.

  “Do you think after breakfast you could help me with a project?” she asked.

  “Oh, what’s that?” he said, reaching for the door knob.

  “Well, it’s just that I heard you mention something to Darryl about the netting on the fish traps getting worn out by the strong current,” she said.

  “Yeah, we had to work with available materials,” he said. “The design was my idea, using scrap wood and hard-knotted netting to make small drum traps, but the current is too strong for them.”

  “If you would show me how to repair the netting, I would take the responsibility for keeping the traps in good condition.” When he hesitated, she continued, “I could probably figure something out on my own, but if you showed me how you made the netting, it would at least give me a start. Heck, maybe I could improve the design.” She shrugged.

  She could tell by the look on her father’s face that he was not excited about the idea, but he worked up a smile and replied, “That would be just fine. I’d be happy to.” It was the phoniest smile she’d ever seen, and when he immediately stepped inside, she regretted asking him.

  I don’t want to do it if he’s just going to be secretly irritated about it, she thought. He doesn’t hide his real feelings as well as he thinks he does. Well, that’s what I get for bringing it up.

  Fuming, she stomped down the porch steps, shoving her hands deep into her coat pockets. It was times like these when she missed having friends. How long had it been since she’d seen her friends in Vancouver? No way to call or text them, no social media. She didn’t even know if they were alive or dead. They, at least, hadn’t resented spending time with her.

  She found her brother walking from the big shed back to the barn, and she hurried to catch up to him.

  “Hey, Darryl,” she called. “Darryl.”

  He kept going a few steps, as if he hadn’t even heard her. Finally, he stopped and slowly turned toward her. He seemed lost in his own thoughts.

  “Did you want something?” he said.

  For some reason, the question annoyed her more than it should have. Did she want something? Maybe to not be ignored. Maybe to not have her brother walk out on birthday parties that she’d planned for days. His question made her suddenly willful. Darryl was not Dad, and she didn’t have to tiptoe around him. He was just her brother, a self-involved, sometimes bratty boy who had grown into a self-involved, distracted young man.

  “After breakfast, you’re going to show me how to make netting for the fish traps,” she said. “I just thought I’d tell you now, so you’d be mentally prepared. I’m taking over responsibility for tending the traps.”

  “I am?” he replied. “You are?”

  “Yes and yes,” she said. “Do you have a problem with that?” She drew herself up tall, as if to challenge him, daring him to back out.

  “Well, I mean…I have to make sure Justine doesn’t need my help,” he said. “She’s still not at a hundred percent.”

  “She doesn’t need your help,” Emma replied. “She’s still resting and getting over her cold. Look, if you can spend a whole hour roaming around the ranch before breakfast without her, you can spend an hour with me after breakfast working on the fishing nets. She’ll be fine.”

  At this, Darryl rolled his eyes. “You don’t understand.”

  She didn’t know what he meant by that comment, but she responded, “I understand just fine. You’re going to help me with the fishing traps and that’s it. We need to repair the netting and maybe come up with a better design.”

  He stared at her flatly for a few seconds, and finally said, “Okay, come with me.” Still lugging Grandpa’s old toolbox, he headed for the porch, waving for her to follow him. “I’ll help you repair the traps. I’ll help you right now.”

  “What does that mean?” she said, following him.

  “Just follow me,” he said. “I’m going to help you with the traps.”

  “You’re supposed to come to breakfast right now,” she said. “We can work on the nets afterward.”

  “I can’t help you with the traps after breakfast,” he said, mounting the porch steps. He set the toolbox on the table between the chairs. “I can help you right now. Come on. I’ll show you.”

  She fully expected him to walk right to the dining room table and sit down as if nothing had happened, but she wasn’t going to let this go. After more than a full day of lying in bed feeling miserable, her tolerance for being overlooked or ignored had greatly diminished. Glaring at her older brother’s back, she followed him inside.

  In the dining room, her mother, father, and grandmother had already sat down at the table. Instead of joining them, Darryl crossed the living room to the den at the back of the house. It was a small, wood-paneled room with a fancy Persian carpet on the floor, a heavily curtained window, and a ton of bookshelves. At one time, it had been the place to watch television, but that old device sat like
a brick on its stand in the corner.

  Darryl went to one of the bookshelves and began rooting through the books. Grandma liked to shelf books thematically. One shelf for fiction, another for historical books, another for encyclopedias and dictionaries. Darryl seemed to be rooting through the “How To” and DIY books. Finally, he grabbed one and pulled it off the shelf. It was a big, fat book with a well-worn green cover. He thrust it at her.

  She didn’t want to take it. This was just a lame joke meant to throw her off.

  “What is this?” she said.

  “Seriously, Emma, take it,” he said. “This is going to be a huge help. Not just with the fishing nets, but with a whole bunch of stuff. Take it. You’ll thank me.”

  She read the title. Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Traditional American Skills. Then she opened the cover and saw that someone had scribbled a message there in bad handwriting: “For Tuck. Picked this up in Seattle. Some light reading for the cabin, perhaps? -Tabby”

  “Now, look,” Darryl said. “I’m dealing with a lot of stuff right now. I know maybe it doesn’t look like it, but I am.”

  “What kind of stuff are you dealing with?” she asked.

  “Personal business,” he replied sharply. “The point is, it’ll be hard to teach anybody new skills. You can’t get on my case about it, okay?” Something on his face, the way he knitted his eyebrows and scrunched up his nose as he spoke, made her think he might be a lot more emotional than he was letting on. And why should that be? Was something wrong that she didn’t know about? It caught her off guard. “This book will teach you all sorts of stuff. Add it to your other survival books. It’s good. Trust me.”

  And with that, he patted her on the shoulder and walked past her back into the living room. She flipped through the book and arrived at a chapter on building animal traps. There were a ton of full-color illustrations showing all kinds of animal traps, from snares to deadfalls. It was right up her alley.

  I guess I can work with this, she thought.

  She shut the book, tucked it under her arm, and headed to breakfast. No, she hadn’t succeeded in getting anyone to spend time with her, but she at least had something new and interesting to work on. Maybe when she trapped some tasty food and brought it home, her family would finally take notice.

  11

  Of course, what Darryl hadn’t dared tell his sister was that he’d found the Back to Basics book the evening before while looking for information on pregnancy and traditional childbirth. He’d read and reread the relevant chapters the previous evening while everyone was tossing and turning, coughing and feeling miserable in their beds. There’d been a lot of useful information, and he certainly felt more informed about delivering a baby using traditional methods, but it hadn’t comforted him at all. Not at all. What a terrifying prospect! There was so much that could go wrong having a baby at home instead of at a hospital.

  This had been bothering him all day, and he gnawed on it and wrestled with it, gradually sinking deeper and deeper back into worry. Justine was still sleeping, so he couldn’t talk to her about it. Maybe she would feel better about the whole subject once she’d looked at the book, but it hadn’t worked for him.

  As he took his place at the breakfast table, he noticed his mother and grandmother staring at him. Did they suspect something was wrong? He couldn’t tell. No one had asked him outright. Only his sister had come close to it, and he’d had to fight hard not to get furious at her. Could she leave him alone and stop prying? Didn’t she have someone else to bother?

  Maybe that book will keep her busy, he thought.

  “Eat up,” his father said.

  Darryl reached across the table and grabbed the tongs, snagging a few sausages and putting them on his plate. Then he added some dried fruit, a few of Tabitha’s weird acorn flour biscuits. His mother poured him a glass of tea and slid it in front of him.

  “Busy this morning?” she asked.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” he replied, then took a big gulp of tea to avoid having to say more. The tea was warm, not sweet at all, and too watery. Still, better than nothing.

  “How is Justine feeling today?” Mom asked.

  “Still pretty crummy,” he said. “Sore throat, headache, all of that stuff, you know? We still have some cough medicine, but I was wondering…do we have any vitamins? That might help her fight off the cold.”

  In truth, he wanted the vitamins for reasons that had nothing to do with her cold. He’d read quite a few alarming things about prenatal care. Their diet had become fairly restricted, and the lack of vitamins could lead to birth defects and a whole host of unfortunate complications.

  “I’m afraid we’re all out of vitamins,” Tabitha said. “In the future, we’ll plant a wide variety of vegetables. That will ensure we have the nutrition we need.”

  “When can we start planting vegetables?” he said. “The sooner, the better.”

  His grandmother gave him a look that was both amused and confused, then she pointed at the small window on one side of the dining room. About four inches of snow was piled up on the windowsill.

  “Well, we’re not going to plant anything in the dead of winter,” she said. “The ground has to thaw, so we can plow and prepare it. In this climate, that’s not going to happen until late March at the earliest.”

  “Oh.” He stabbed at a sausage but found he didn’t really have any appetite. “There’s no other way to start growing vegetables earlier?”

  “Well, of course, there is,” she replied. “Heck, we used to have an old greenhouse on the property, but it hasn’t been usable in probably fifteen or twenty years. The building is out beyond the fence on the far east side of the property. If it were in decent shape, we could grow some things year-round, but it’s a wreck. Most of the windows have probably fallen out.”

  It was something, not much but something. He’d built a lot of the fence by himself. Surely, he could renovate an old greenhouse. He’d seen the building before but only in the distance. It was well beyond the fence, almost in the forest itself, overgrown and falling apart. In fact, he hadn’t even been sure it belonged to the Healys, which is why he hadn’t messed with it.

  “I didn’t realize that was your property, Grandma. I think maybe I’ll go check it out after I eat,” he said. “You never know, we might be able to fix it up and make it useful again.”

  Emma finally appeared then, taking her seat. She had the book under her arm, but she set it on the ground before pouring herself a cup of tea.

  “You just really miss vegetables, do you?” Darryl’s mom asked him. “Can’t live without beets and radishes in your life?”

  Darryl laughed uncomfortably to cover his real feelings. He didn’t need them probing for the reason until he was good and ready—until Justine was good and ready—to tell them.

  “I don’t know about beets and radishes,” he said. “I was thinking more about leafy green vegetables, stuff with lots of vitamins. Maybe…” Seeking some excuse, he seized on the most obvious. “Maybe if we have more vitamins in our diets, we wouldn’t be prone to getting colds.”

  As if his mention of it reminded her, Tabitha coughed, took a drink, and blew her nose into a handkerchief. Through all of this, Greg had been quietly eating, staring at nothing in particular, but he sat up now and said, “Sounds like a good project. It’ll keep you busy. Take a look at the greenhouse and let us know if it’s beyond repair or not.”

  “I will, Dad,” he replied, cutting into a sausage. Maybe he could eat a little, after all.

  The fence was reinforced like crazy by now. It looked even uglier than before, but it was taller and sturdy, topped with lots of jagged edges of sharp objects. If it didn’t dissuade thieves now, nothing would. Darryl considered this as he walked outside and followed the property line. He hadn’t thought much about the cow that had been stolen out of the barn. He’d been way too preoccupied to worry about it, especially when they still had more cows than they needed.

  His dad coul
d deal with the theft. Darryl had enough to worry about on his own. There was absolutely no room left in his mind or heart for any other problems. He finally arrived at the far east edge of the property, just beyond the fence, where the old greenhouse stood. It was so overgrown and in such poor condition that he’d barely noticed it when building the fence. He could see why they’d placed it in this spot. It was on a slight hill that put it in direct sunlight much of the day, the ridge of the roof running from east to west.

  The building itself wasn’t large, which made him think this had been more of a hobby his grandparents had taken up at one time. Maybe it had proven to be more work than necessary. Before the EMP, they certainly hadn’t needed the vegetables when they could just drive to the farmer’s market.

  A few small trees had sprouted up around the building, but Darryl shoved his way through the dry wall of branches, dragging his legs through the high snow, and passed through the door. The framework of the building appeared to be mostly intact, though he wouldn’t really know that for sure until he cleared the broken pieces out. As he crossed through the snowy interior, he heard glass crunch under his boots. About half of the panes had fallen in, many of them now underfoot.

  It doesn’t matter, he thought. I can make this work.

  It would be a big project. All the better. It would give him something to focus on so he wasn’t simply wandering the property worrying about the future. They already had a store of seeds in one of the sheds. If he could plant them by early spring, Justine would have plenty of fresh vegetables for herself and the baby.

  Stooping down, he dug into the snow and rooted around until he found one of the panes of glass. He dug it out and set it on top of the snow. It was thick glass, slightly chipped along the edges, but otherwise in decent shape.

  He would need help. That was the only complication. Some of the work would require two people. He considered the possibilities. Emma would certainly love to get to involved. His sister wanted to be an expert at everything. However, he felt like she would notice he was worried about something, and she had no qualms about asking probing or personal questions.